Turtleneck Man, Dalmatian Man, Arm Man...Oh, My!

During college--especially freshman year when we hadn't met many people yet--my new dorm friends and I did that thing where we gave people we continually saw around campus but didn't know nicknames. I remember doing this mostly with hot upper-classmen guys. We had no idea who they were (yet!) but we talked about them so much that we needed identifiers. Let's see, there was Turtleneck Man (my crush--he was very JCrew), Dalmatian Man (my roommate's crush--hippie dude who walked his dalmatian around campus), and Arm Man (lovely, muscley arms, duh), just to name a few.

We later discovered their real names: John, Glenn, and Steve. The nicknames were much more fun. There was a thrilling sense of mystery--who were these guys and what might the future hold?--that you just don't get with a John, Glenn, or Steve.

There were a few girls/women we named, too. We poured over the freshman Facebook (a book with photos of all incoming freshman--yeah, The Facebook was a cool college thing before Zuckerberg and the Internet turned it into a needy housewife thing) and even though names were included with the photos, the wise-asses on our dorm floor sometimes gave nicknames to the odd ducks. The one I remember best was Ugly Susan. I think her name was Eunice in real life and, as I recall, she was quite dorky-looking, and we resembled each other not at all. But one of the guys saw something there, so.... (I was just happy she was Ugly Susan instead of Pretty Susan).

After college, I moved to NYC, and there was no longer any need for these nicknames. There are just too many people in Manhattan--you don't tend to repeatedly run into the same people unless you already know them. Sure, there's Deli-Worker Guy and Creepy Dude from Downstairs; but because these people aren't terribly interesting, you don't talk about them much and therefore only need basic identifiers, rather than cute nicknames.

Abs of Steel has two young kids,
so her abs are extra-impressive!

But once my husband and I moved to the suburbs, nicknames became necessary again. We began to see the same strangers over and over again around town. We needed a quick way to identify these folks: That Blonde Mom With The Two Girls Who We See At The Pool just wasn't cutting it.

What Sven looks like

My husband, who has a seriously awesome way with words, is usually the nicknamer. Pretty soon we were talking about Abs of Steel (a super-fit, bikini-wearing mom we'd see at the pool), Sven (a Nordic-looking, convertible-Beemer-driving dad with long blonde hair), and Robert Plant (who's nickname really should be Schlubby Robert Plant, because I only wish we had a dude who looked like RP in town). It made conversations much easier.

NOT, unfortunately, what our
Robert Plant looks like (except
maybe the hair)

But unlike at college where we didn't usually end up becoming friendly with those hot upperclassmen or nerdy freshman we nicknamed, once you've lived in a small town for five or six years, you tend to start meeting people.

Yup, we now officially know Abs of Steel. And Sven, too. AWK-WARD!

Nice folks, though.